The Reason workshops in SF at Recombinant Media Labs were another great event; thanks to the support of the Reason User Community in the Bay Area. People came from all parts of Northern California, from SF and the East and North Bay, the Silicon Valley area, the Central Coast (like Me), and even from the Central Valley. Even though the workshops were scheduled for 6 hours, GW and I ended up extending the time on both days. We had a pretty ambitious plan to cover a lot material, and things went much smoother than the spring workshops.

After seeing the Native Instruments demo at Recombinant Labs, I found out that GW and I would have access to two main projectors in the RML facility. Last week, I was scrambling to put together a visual presentation in Keynote. During the workshops, the presentation ran on one screen while we demonstrated various procedures on the the other screen. For each of our presentations, GW and I were able to switch back and forth between laptops. It was a busy week for me as I was learning a new application, tweaking the course outline, answering emails, arranging for food catering and other last minute details.

At the end of the Advanced Workshop, GW and I demonstrated a little routine that was inspired from the recent Reason Laptop Jam Session. We used MIDI sync’d our laptops together, and I generated loops and played organ, bass and synth hooks in real time, while he recorded and processed them in Ableton Live. I had a rack of devices with patches and loops preloaded, and accessed each device by using the remote override track selection buttons on the Kontrol49. I would play a part and GW would record a loop clip in Ableton. While he edited the clip, i would mute myself out and start working on the next clip for him to record. It was f-ing cool!-especially in the fantastic sound system at the RML facility.

After the workshops, Bryan Gibbs, the lead engineer of Recombinant Media Labs, pulled out a vintage Minimoog and a TR-808 and hooked them into the main sound system. This was a treat as we spent another hour or so tooling around with a massive analog sound cranked through the speakers. The room was shaking pretty severely. I was burning a DVD on my MacBook, and the burn failed since the vibrations caused the writer to skip. This photograph that Mark shot is fairly blurry; not because he isn’t a good photographer, but the pressure transducers in the floor caused the whole room to vibrate

GW and I are already thinking about the next set of workshops at RML, but GW wants to take it on the road. He’s going to be looking into some places around his home town in Texas. The RML people have suggested the facility at UCSB. I’m going to talk to my Alma Mater, Columbia, and see if we could organize something in NY. We’re also thinking about slimming down the outline into topic specific workshops. There never seems to be enough time to go through all of the cool features in Reason. We really should make it a week of seminars, instead of a couple of days.

There are always an endless number of questions, and GW is going to offer his time directly to people interested in one-on-one training with Reason. He’s in the North Bay Area, and you can reach him via email: andeclipse@yahoo.com